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Fredericks (Claude) Banyan Press archive
900230A
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Contributing Institution:
Special Collections
Title: Banyan Press archive
Creator:
Berryman, John, 1914-1972
Creator:
Cahoon, Herbert, 1918-2000
Creator:
Duncan, Robert, 1919-1988
Creator:
Duncan, Harry
Creator:
Everson, William, 1912-1994
Creator:
Eberhart, Richard, 1904-2005
Creator:
Gallup, Donald, 1913-2000
Creator:
Fredericks, Claude
Creator:
Steloff, Frances, 1887-1989
Creator:
Stein, Gertrude, 1874-1946
Creator:
Stevens, Wallace, 1879-1955
Creator:
Fredericks, Claude
Creator:
Sitwell, Osbert, 1892-1969
Creator:
Spender, Stephen, 1909-1995
Creator:
Simic, Charles, 1938-
Creator:
Sitwell, Edith, 1887-1964
Creator:
Werner, Arno, 1899-1995
Creator:
Graham, Ethel
Creator:
Howes, Barbara
Creator:
Malamud, Bernard
Creator:
Moore, Marianne, 1887-1972
Creator:
Saul, Milton
Creator:
Van Vechten, Carl, 1880-1964
Creator:
Toklas, Alice B.
Creator:
Banyan Press
Creator:
Merrill, James, 1926-1995
Identifier/Call Number: 900230A
Physical Description:
6 Linear Feet
(13 boxes)
Date (inclusive): 1946-1986
Abstract: Small press founded in 1946 by Claude Fredericks. Archive comprises a complete set of the publications, primarily poetry,
and other printed matter from The Banyan Press and Claude Fredericks (1946-1986). Also includes related correspondence, manuscripts,
account books, and reviews.
Physical Location: Request access to the physical materials described in this inventory through the
catalog record for this collection. Click here for the
access policy .
Language of Material:
English
.
Scope and Content of Collection
The archive holds the complete set of 151 imprints from The Banyan Press and Claude Fredericks. Sixty-three imprints were
produced under Fredericks's name. Publications are primarily poetry and other items include broadsides, Christmas cards, stationery,
press announcements, and pamphlets.
Among the poets and other authors printed by the Press are John Berryman, Robert Duncan, Richard Eberhart, William Everson,
André Gide, Barbara Howes, Bernard Malamud, James Merrill, Thomas Merton, Charles Simic, Stephen Spender, and Gertrude Stein.
Reprints and translations include works by William Blake, Tristan Corbière, John Donne, Meister Eckhart, Francis of Assisi,
and Thomas Traherne. The Press occasionally printed books on commission from others, including from The Gotham Book Mart and
Jargon Books.
Private printing, especially for Christmas, stationery, announcements, invitations, and programs (for example for The Betty
Parsons Gallery and The Living Theatre) were common jobs under both imprints.
Included is related correspondence between Fredericks and writers (Eberhart, Howes, Marianne Moore, Edith and Osbert Sitwell,
Spender, Alice B. Toklas, Carl Van Vechten, among others), booksellers (Frances Steloff), librarians, bookbinders (Arno Werner),
stationers, and book reviewers. Overall, the correspondence offers a picture of the New York literary scene in the late 1940s.
The life of the Press is documented in limited business records (an account book, contracts, cancelled checks) as well as
reviews and articles about the Press, a long history of the Press by William Coakley and one by Barbara Cash as well as bibliographies
by J. D. Edelstein and others. Copies of other items designed but not printed by Fredericks are also present as well as 27
printer's typescripts and a limited number of galley proofs.
Arranged in six series: Series I. Complete run of the press, 1946-1986; Series II. Samples of publications designed by Fredericks,
ca. 1962-1965; Series III. Business records, 1946-1978; Series IV. Material about the Press, ca. 1961-1985; Series V. Printer's
manuscripts, 1947-1950; Series VI. Banyan ress correspondence,
The Banyan Press was a small press founded in 1946 by Claude Fredericks and Milton Saul. In 1948 they moved their operation,
a single 10 inch by 14 inch Golding press, to Pawlet, Vermont. Most of the book design and press work was done by Fredericks.
Three or four items were designed by Saul, and one by Harry Prickett. Saul did most of the typesetting. All type was set by
hand except for one item, the introduction to The Poetry Center Presents (1947), which was printed from Linotype. After 1950
Fredericks ran the press alone under his own name, except for the period 1975-1978, when he was assisted by David Beeken.
Claude Fredericks papers, circa 1850-1988, bulk 1961-1988. Accession no. 900230B.
Claude Fredericks journal and letters, circa 1916-1988. Accession no. 900230C.
Neil Hathaway processed the collection in 1994. It was further processed by Emmabeth Nanol in 2010.
Acquired 1990.
Banyan Press archive, 1946-1986, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Accession no. 900230A.
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa900230a
Open for use by qualified researchers.
Contact
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Subjects and Indexing Terms
Small presses -- Vermont
Ephemera
Photographic prints
Photographs, Original
American poetry
American literature
Publishers and publishing -- Vermont
Printing -- Vermont
Book industries and trade -- United States
Book design -- Vermont
New York Public Library
Jargon Society
Grolier Club
Gotham Book Mart
Fredericks, Claude
Elmer Holmes Bobst Library
Betty Parsons Gallery
Bennington College
Banyan Press